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The United States officially withdrew on Sunday, about six months after incumbent President Donald Trump announced the decision, according to the US State Department, cited by CNN.
The treaty, concluded in 1992, allows the 34 Member States to carry out short-range reconnaissance flights, unarmed, in the airspace of the other signatory countries.
Trump then said that Russia’s actions were what forced him to make this decision. He was referring to Russia’s restrictions on flights near its Kaliningrad exclave, an area between Poland and Lithuania where the Russian military maintains a strong presence.
The United States also accused Russia of refusing flights within 10 km of the Georgia-Russia border, as well as a previously approved flight in the area of a major Russian military exercise.
It is one of the major military agreements the Americans had with Russia, a treaty signed by other NATO member states.
The Open Skies Agreement was negotiated by President George HW Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, in 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Since then, the agreement has been signed by 35 countries (including Romania): Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark (including Greenland), Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany , Greece, Iceland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, United States, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and Hungary, and is entered into force in 2002.
Publisher: Monica Bonea
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